


stay alive for me

by Valhella



Series: when he wakes [2]
Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Established Relationship, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, M/M, Mild Smut, Post-The Scorch Trials, Psychological Trauma, like blink-and-you'll-miss-it, like it deals a lot with Minho's incarceration at WCKD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:16:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5602963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valhella/pseuds/Valhella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas promised he'd come back for Minho; Minho just has to learn to hold on until then.</p><p>(sequel to "and i'm still waking every morning (but it's not with you)")</p>
            </blockquote>





	stay alive for me

**Author's Note:**

> The long-awaited (?) sequel to "and I'm still waking every morning (but it's not with you)." Can be read-alone, but there are some references to the first part of this series.
> 
> This is MY take and nothing that happens in this fic is confirmed to happen in canon. Anyway, it's mentioned towards the end of TST that WCKD told Teresa they'd be OK because she willingly helped them out, so I took that into my own interpretation (and incorporated elements of Minho's canonical third trial). Once again, keep in mind this is MOVIE-verse, so don't be surprised if it doesn't coincide with the continuity of the Scorch Trials book.
> 
>  
> 
> (sidenote: TDC film will take place one year after TST, so don't be confused by the time jump).

When he wakes up, he chokes on the scream coming up his throat.

How many hours ago - four, five? A  _whole day_ , for all he knows - he'd have been at the Right Arm camp with his friends, the threat of WCKD behind them. Hours ago he could still feel the hatred, the throbbing anger when Ava Paige started shoving subjects into a berg, Teresa by her side like some obedient dog. Hours ago he could still hear Thomas shout, scream, cough out his name with the last breath in his lungs before the pain of several electric shocks had become all too much that he couldn't fight to keep awake anymore.

But when he wakes up, he's confused by the oxygen mask strapped around his face, by the IV injecting fluid into his right arm, by the fact that he's back in what he's praying isn't a WCKD compound.

"Subject A7 is awake."

He panics at the voices, the sound of doctors gathering round a bed and almost instinctively, he reaches for the IV and rips it out, blood hitting the floor.

_"Subject A7 is awake. Subject A7 is awake, I repeat, Subject A7 is awake."_

Jesus Christ, he had a name. Not his real one, either, and they're talking about him like he's some kind of thing, like he's their  _property--_

He struggles to get off the oxygen mask and is more than prepared to stab the discarded IV into any of these shanks' necks, but a sudden sting, unmistakably a needle, to the lower back is quick to make sure that doesn't happen, and he collapses again.

 

.

 

_When he closes his eyes again, he's in the maze with Thomas. Not running for their lives, but finding time to seek the little pleasures being away from the rest of the Gladers offered them._

_This kiss is slow, tender, not raw and rushed like most of the others._

_They're grabbing, tasting, desperate to get as much of each other as they can._

_"Really feeling like," Thomas pants outs, as Minho plants sweet kisses on his neck, "like - like we should be looking for a way out."_

_Minho smiles as he perches back up to meet Thomas' lips. "Cut me some slack, greenie. I deserve a break."_

_"Yeah. Yeah you do," Thomas says, and he pushes his free hand forward into his abdomen, lowering it reach the top of his pants. "You really, really do."_

_Minho smiles and leans back. Thomas doesn't go back on his offer, and the next few moments of his life are spent in absolute pleasure, courtesy of Thomas' long, talented fingers. They smile, they kiss, they get their shit back together._

_And then they run._

 

.

 

"Minho," Janson huffs, and drops a small packet of files on the desk in front of him.

Goddamn it, Janson was lucky the WCKD guards were smart enough to keep him handcuffed to the table in front of them, otherwise he'd already have ripped Janson's throat out with his teeth.

"Ratman."

He gives a small laugh. "I've heard 'doucheface', 'dickhead' and the occasional 'asshole', but Ratman? Huh. Gonna let that stick." He opens up the files and begins scanning them. "Let's see....Subject A7...vitals look fine...not much damage from the Scorch, although we did manage to find some Lichtenberg figures all over your back and torso. Wanna talk about that?"

"What the hell's to talk about?" Minho says. "I got hit by lightning, big deal."

"Big deal indeed. Those scars are gonna last forever. But I did warn you and your friends that you wouldn't last a day out in the Scorch."

That's it. That is  _fucking it_.

"I would rather," Minho leans across the metal table, "be eaten alive by cranks than be used as your guinea pig. I'd rather walk through the Scorch a thousand times over."

"Probably what your friends are doing right now," Janson says, completely unfazed. "But you are of some importance. Granted, Chancellor Paige and I found it hard not to immediately, er, harvest you, so to say, because at the time being, you'd be a great help providing intel about the Right Arm."

"Why don't you go ask Teresa?" Minho snarls. "Surprised she didn't tell you everything she knew on the berg, right over my unconscious body."

"Teresa has been a tremendous amount of help," Janson replies. "But, unfortunately, not enough. You see, Minho, Teresa was a vital part of your group. The connection she shared with Thomas was so strong that it played out in the maze. Unfortunately, since Thomas is so clearly blinded by her betrayal, I highly doubt him, Newt and the others would risk their lives to go back for her."

He wants to not care, he  _really_ does, but Janson's made it hard ever since he dropped Thomas' name.

"But you?" Janson continues. "Oh ho, you, Newt and Frypan go way back. Three years confined in that labyrinth? God knows you've formed a connection. But that," he pauses, shuffles some of the files, then turns back up to look at MInho, "is not the most intriguing part. I've seen the tapes, read the reports, watched everything. You seem to have a connection with Thomas."

He swallows, tries to ignore the beads of sweat dripping down his neck, the hair standing at the back of his neck. "I formed a connection with everybody in that maze."

Janson raises his eyebrows. " _Everybody_? Are you sure about that?" he pulls out a screenshot, undeniably of Thomas and him, all those weeks ago. They're in the map room, Thomas has his hand around Minho's hair as he -

Minho stands as tall as the handcuffs will let him, eyes flaring. 

"Touched a nerve," Janson says, and he pulls out a different photo, this one of him and Thomas in the maze, lips locked as they lean against one of the shrubbery bushes. "Funny, I don't have any stills of you and any of the other gladers doing this."

"Stay out of it," Minho growls. 

"My job makes it so hard for me to," Janson only says. "Clearly I've got you worked up so I think it'd be best for the both of us if you were escorted back to your cell. Fellas?" he calls at the two guards standing on either side of the door, and one of them starts unlocking the handcuffs on the table.

"Just string me up," Minho blurts out. It shocks him more than it shocks Janson, that weeks ago he was so willing to leave Thomas behind in the maze and now he was willing to have his worst fears play out, just so that they wouldn't have a reason to go back for him. "Harvest me or whatever. Kill me, I don't care anymore."

Janson eyes him up and down, and Minho sees a flash of compassion, what little of it there was left in him, before he gestures back to the guards. "Take him back." 

 

.

 

They apparently allow visitors in, and he finds that out when they deliver him lunch. He hears a guard huff, "Five minutes, tops."

He sort of knows who's gonna come through the door and he's already sick to his stomach.

"I'm happy you're doing better."

Typical Teresa. 

In any other situation he'd have been happy. He liked Teresa. He had his doubts, just like Gally did, but in the end getting out of the Maze was the most important part.

It's just the fact she'd betrayed not just him, but his  _whole_ group of friends, the boys he'd built the last three years of his life he'd remembered around. The fact that he's forced to play nice with the world's shittiest health organization, or else he'd have to be strung up like those poor kids. 

He doesn't take his eyes off the ceiling. "What the hell do you want?"

She shrugs. "Make sure you're OK."

He gives a sudden and sarcastic laugh, then lifts himself off the mattress. "Just 'cause they've bandaged me up doesn't mean I'm OK."

"No, I know."

"I'll tell you why you're here. You want to make yourself feel better. You know what you did was shitty. You're just like them, trying to justify all the bad things you've done by being nice about it. But I'll play along.  _Thank you, Teresa_ , for making sure I didn't end up like all those kids. This is so much better."

"I'm not asking for a 'thank you'," she insists. "You can choose to believe what they're doing here is wrong, just as much as I choose to believe I'm doing the right thing."

He feels his head throb. This can't be the same Teresa from the maze. This couldn't be her. Has WCKD graduated to cloning?

"You sure one of the cranks didn't get to you while we were out in the Scorch?" he asks sarcastically. "Because that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. Especially from you."

Teresa sighs. "If I'm sorry about anything, I'm sorry about Thomas."

Minho refuses to look up and meet her eyes. He wasn't going to have this conversation. "Don't."

"I know how he felt about you," Teresa continues. "How he still feels. How you feel about him. And I'm sorry that -"

"You don't get to apologize!" Minho suddenly exclaims, and he finds himself on his feet. This was a long time coming. Being tasered, sedated, and endlessly questioned about Thomas - it was too much, it was all too much. "You don't get to talk about Thomas! You know what you did! You don't get to say you're sorry, not now, not when he's probably planning a suicide mission to break me out, and fuck knows it's not worth it-"

Teresa stands her ground, not breaking a single sweat, but Minho sees the fear in her eyes, the regret. "Minho, please-"

"I'm either gonna die here, or Thomas is gonna die trying to break me out. There's nothing you can do to change that, Teresa."

They're quiet for a while. Minho wants to feel bad for lashing out the way he did but he can't dig deep and find it in him. Teresa could do every thing she could to make sure WCKD doesn't harvest him like they'd promised and he'd still feel the same burning resentment. The burden of guilt she carried was incomparable to the fear he felt, the fear that Thomas, Newt, Frypan and the others would die out in the Scorch and he'd been stuck there forever doing WCKD's dirty work. The fear that if they did come back for him, what little was left of the Right Arm wouldn't be nearly enough to tackle WCKD's security systems. The fear that he'd never see his friends again; _he'd never see Thomas again._

His stomach turns.

"I'm sorry," Teresa finally says. "I'm sorry I did all this. And I'm sorry I'm causing you pain. But all I can do is try to make it easier."

He doesn't care. He really, really doesn't care. His head is throbbing, mind is spinning, body numb with all the drugs they've filled him up with. "You can't."

Her eyes are suddenly watery, and he realizes she's about to cry. She wipes her eyes before the tears spill. "I'm sorry."

She leaves.

He screams, pounds the walls, yells every foul word in his arsenal, and when he can't do anything more, he sleeps.

 

.

 

The next few days are quick to drive him insane. It's quiet, mostly, except for when they come in occasionally to give him his food. Minho's not used to the quiet. The last three years of his life, the Scorch included, were all spent running. He's not used to small spaces; he doesn't like it, never has. He can sort of sense it's something he's always struggled with, even before they wiped his memory and put him in the maze. 

He tries to exercise to pass the time, but no amount of push-ups, sit-ups or pull-ups could substitute the natural flow that running gave him.

He remembers Aris and Sonya, remembers seeing them in the berg the minute before he passed out. Wonders how they're dealing with all this; if they're suffering in solitary confinement like he was, even if WCKD's promise had extended to members of Group B.

He's not the crying type. But then he thinks about the brush of Thomas' lips on his own, his hands holding Thomas' waist like he was something made new, the sound of Thomas' heavy breathing in between their ragged kisses, and he wants nothing more than to go back to that time, so desperately he shuts his eyes as if when he'd open them again, he'd see his friends. He'd see the Right Arm, planning a mass shutdown of all WCKD's operations. He'd see Thomas.

Fear is how he learned to survive in the maze. He took that fear and turned into something he could harness, something he could use against the grievers, even the cranks. But this type of fear was different; he wasn't being chased down, wasn't being struck by lightning. 

He was scared, genuinely scared, because he knew Thomas was hatching a plan, knew Newt would follow him to the ends of the Earth. Remembered that Thomas had made him promises, in and out of the maze. 

_I'm not going to let them string you up._

_I_ _'m not gonna let them take us back._

_You've got me. Here in the Scorch, and whatever the hell's after that._

_Don't come for me, Thomas_ , he thinks, right before he goes to sleep, eyes red, pillow soaked with tears.  _Don't come for me._

 

.

 

In what he suspects is the end of the week, one of the WCKD guards comes in with more than just a metallic tray of food. It's Chancellor Paige; she wants to see him, and he tries to hide any ounce of excitement that he gets to leave that godforsaken cell for the first time in days.

He's escorted by two guards, both who hold his arms securely, through the facility and into Paige's office. She sits there like she's been waiting for his arrival, elbows on her desk, hands resting under her chin. 

One of the guards brings out handcuffs. "No, no," Paige chides. "That won't be necessary."

"Y'sure?" one of the guards says. "We've got, a, er....violent type."

"I've read Janson's reports," Paige says curtly. "I'm well informed of the nature of our subjects. Let him sit, without the handcuffs, please."

One of the guards eyes Minho up and down before both of them leave. "We'll be right out," says one.

When the door slams shut, Paige rests her hands on the front of the desk and pulls them into a tight lock. "Minho, you are not our prisoner."

He lifts a single eyebrow. "So, what am I, just someone you're keeping locked up in a cell?"

"I know you find this hard to believe, but we are doing this for a reason. Your family, if they're still alive, I know they would have wanted this. Imagine. With your help, they could have a cure in a matter of months."

"And if they're dead, like half of the world?"

"Then you would be helping millions of others."

He lets out a half-laugh. "Gotta tell ya. That's a big price to pay for the lives of others. Killing kids, I mean."

"I can't sway you any more than I can sway your friends. Most of them, anyway. Teresa has been an amazing asset."

"There's a word for her, you know," he notes. "Someone who you think was your friend but then stabs you right in the back when you turn around. Traitor, yeah, I think that's what it's called."

"Do you hate her?"

"What the hell do you care?" 

"Teresa cares. A tremendous amount, in fact. I'm told she's constantly asking about you."

Minho leans back against his seat, unconvinced. "She just feels guilty."

"Of course she does. No doubt, because of her connection with Thomas, she certainly feels guilty that what's happened has resulted in the two of you being separated."

His eyes lunge up at the sound of Thomas' name, but he quickly recovers. "Don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"Certainly, all our observers were intrigued, to say the least, of the connection you two formed, in and out of the maze. In fact, of all our maze groups, you two held the strongest bond. It's outstanding to study, really. The way you relied on each other within the maze. The way he looked at you, even when you didn't know, and vice versa. Even the way he screamed your name when the berg doors shut. The tears streaming down his face, the absolute loss of hope in his eyes."

He hates the nature of their talk; she's speaking about him like he's more of a subject than a person,  _right in front of him_. "Nice to know that footage of me swallowing Thomas down was insightful. Now, are you gonna run some tests, or do I have to listen to this sentimental bullshit all day?"

Paige decides it's best for both of them for her to stop. She nods, then says, "The lies end now, Minho, be assured of that. Your first test begins tomorrow. Nothing will happen that you will not be informed about."

"Or asked about. Y'know, for my consent," he interjects. "Whatever. I hope I die in here."

"And why's that?"

He takes a breath, slow and easy, and sighs out his response. "Then my friends won't have to die trying to break me out."

 

.

 

After a while, it becomes routine. The tests and experiments. They check his vitals, run him through the day's test, study, let him rest, and then the process repeats. He can only assume it's the same for Aris and Sonya. How little he manages to see them, they look as run down as he does. 

The tests vary, and many of them wear him out. One in particular forced him to pick out which glader he'd choose to save among the rest, like they were expecting him to pick out Thomas. But Newt was just as important; maybe not in the same manner, and so were Frypan, Winston, Alby and the others. He refused, let them have it the hard way. And they beat him shitless over it, but he'd do it a thousand times over.

He'd much rather be walking through the Scorch. 

Teresa visits him time to time, just to make sure he's OK, because she  _does_ care, and he'll give her that. It helped feed her guilt about her betraying Thomas the way she did, but he didn't care. She was wrong, and she had to know that, so he makes each of their meetings colder than the last.

Weeks turn to months, and the worst part of it all is the lingering fear. Any day could be the day his door is opened up and Thomas is there, gun in hand with Newt, telling him they're going home. Any day could be Thomas dying as a result of his bravery or stupidity or whatever it was; the same thing that had him running into the maze when he and Alby didn't make it. 

He wasn't ready. He wasn't ready for any of it.

But, like Sonya and Aris, and like Thomas, Newt and the rest of his friends back at the Right Arm, he had to wait. 

**Author's Note:**

> (waggles eyebrows) how bout that reference to Minho's third trial, eh????
> 
> Anyway, I am planning to make this series three-part 'cause I don't think I'm all done. Hope you enjoyed this bit!


End file.
